1. Field of the Invention
The present invention pertains to the art of kitchen construction and, more particularly, a kitchen system including multiple base units which are use to interconnect multiple appliance and/or storage modules, with at least the appliance and/or storage modules being easily interchangeable in order to enable a kitchen system to readily conform to the particular needs or preferences of a consumer.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
The kitchen has become the focal point or nerve center of most homes. As such, manufacturers are putting more time and effort into designing kitchen systems that will accommodate a wide range of consumer tastes, needs and spatial requirements. In addition to addressing generally universally perceived needs, it would be beneficial to enable current designs to adapt to the changing requirements of an individual consumer.
In the past, a master carpenter was typically utilized to design and build a custom kitchen. This required a great deal of time, effort and expense in order to bring any individual consumer's dream to fruition. Over time, kitchen designers developed various models which overcame the need for employing a skilled carpenter to construct a cabinet system. These models generally took the form of cabinets sections which could be interconnected, even by a homeowner, to create a custom kitchen system. More specifically, it is now possible to select from different, commercially available cabinet sections, have the selected sections delivered to a home, manually position the sections relative to one another in a given kitchen, and then interconnect the sections on site using basic carpentry skills. Often, computers are used to aid in designing the overall layout and in ordering the desired sections.
While a homeowner currently has available a rather wide variety of options, cabinet sections are still targeted to installation about the perimeter of the kitchen. In other words, custom designing of kitchen cabinetry are essentially limited to wall mounted units which, in combination with special spacer sections, can be fit about perimeter portions of a kitchen. This arrangement, while effective in enabling a consumer to design the wall cabinetry in a kitchen, does not lend itself to readily reconfiguring the established layout or the construction of kitchen islands.
Kitchen island assemblies, by design, are visible from all sides. Wall mounted cabinet sections are, by design, constructed having an unfinished rear portions adapted to engage a wall surface. As such, combining sections to create a kitchen island assembly requires more than basic carpentry skills. If a consumer desires a kitchen island, either a pre-configured island is needed or a skilled artisan is required to construct the frame, run any required electrical and gas connections and subsequently finish the structure.
In addition to meeting spatial requirements, kitchens are designed to accommodate consumers having an average height. This means that consumers, above or below the average height, are typically forced to work at a work surface in an uncomfortable or awkward position. One method to correct this problem was to enable a vertical height adjustment associated with the work surfaces, wherein a control mechanism can be actuated by the consumer in order to raise or lower the kitchen assembly to a desired height. Additionally, vertically height adjustable kitchen islands have also been developed to provide consumers the ability to varying work surface heights to comfortable positions.
Regardless of the existence of prior proposed systems, there lacks the ability to readily modify an established kitchen configuration. This is particularly true with respect to kitchen islands. There certainly exists a need for wall or island arrangements which can be both vertically adjustable and readily configurable, while not requiring a specially skilled artisan for initially assembling or subsequently reconfiguring the overall system. There also exists a need for a vertically adjustable kitchen assembly which can be readily reconfigured, preferably by a consumer, such as by interchanging one appliance module for another, while not having to alter the vertical adjustment system. Accordingly, there exists a need in the art for a reconfigurable, modular kitchen system which enables one possessing basic carpentry skill to construct and later, if desired, reconfigure a vertically adjustable kitchen system.